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DARPA pulls OpenBSD funding

The US Defense Department's funding agency for R&D has pulled the remainder of a $2.3 Million grant for OpenBSD researchers to improve the security of the OS. CNET is carrying the news with some interesting comments by those directly associated with the work. At this point, there has been no official statement as to why the funding was pulled but the project's head, Theo de Raadt, has a few theories that, if true, are incredibly disconcerting.

An e-mail message from a professor who is managing the grant did not provide a reason, but de Raadt said he believes the cancellation was prompted by concerns about the money going to too many foreign developers and to antiwar statements that de Raadt made to reporters.

Of course, de Raadt has no proof to justify his assertion, but the implications are pretty ugly. DARPA has had a profound effect on the way in which we communicate by originally funding the network development project that eventually became the internet. It's unsettling to think that funding for important work into security technology would be used as a political tool to chastise those that speak out against government activity. I'm sure I'll receive a few dozen emails identifying my naivet? at the politics involved in academic research grant distribution. Nonetheless, the idea that researchers need to be good Party Men in order to ensure their funding is appalling.

But, of course, this is coming from the lead scientist who just had his US issued credit card declined. Apparently, de Raadt was sent a warning that DARPA was concerned about the percentage of funding going outside the US. The idea that foreign developers are receiving too much of the money is a bit easier to digest simply for the intentions of DARPA if a bit silly in the framework of an open source project. Federal funding of academic research is intended to propel that nation's scientific community toward worthwhile and beneficial discovery and it would seem de Raadt's team had forgotten this stipulation of their funding.

Hopefully it will turn out to be something far less questionable like the researchers were funding terrorism or something.